Joe Biden’s Ronald Reagan Problem
President-elect Joe Biden is inheriting a national crisis that has built up over 40 years. On January 20, 1981, former President Ronald Reagan took the US on a radical course when he declared in his inaugural address , “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; gove…
Biden to sign executive orders rejoining Paris climate accord and rescinding travel ban on first day
President-elect Joe Biden plans to sign roughly a dozen executive orders, including rejoining the Paris climate accord and ending the travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries, on his first day in office, according to a memo from incoming chief of staff Ron Klain . F…
Sustainable Development: GOAL OF THE MONTH
Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty declined from 36 per cent in 1990 to 10 per cent in 2015. But the pace of change is decelerating and the COVID-19 crisis risks reversing decades of progress in the fight against poverty. New research published by t…
The World China Wants
Chinese power today is a protean, dynamic force formed by the nexus of authoritarianism, consumerism, global ambitions, and technology. Call it the ACGT model: with the same initials as the nucleotides in DNA, these strands of Chinese power combine and recombine to form China’s modern political iden…
Sustainable Development: GOAL OF THE MONTH
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts 2019 was the second warmest year on record and the end of the warmest decade (2010- 2019) ever recorded. Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rose to new recor…
The world’s fastest-growing source of food
The green fronds that grow along much of India’s shoreline have large potential as a sustainable food source, while helping to fight climate change. Researchers in India have long been proposing seaweed cultivation as a form of sustainable agriculture. Much of India’s coast is ideal for seaweed cult…
Jack Ma Makes Ant Offer to Placate Chinese Regulators
As Jack Ma was trying to salvage his relationship with Beijing in early November, the beleaguered Chinese billionaire offered to hand over parts of his financial-technology giant, Ant Group, to the Chinese government, according to people with knowledge of the matter. “You can take any of the platfor…
Global Markets Are Partying Like It Is 2008 (But a Crash Is Coming)
The Bank for International Settlements keeps warning us, global asset and credit market prices have once again risen well above their underlying value—in other words, they are in bubble territory. In addition, as our health experts keep warning us, we still have to get through a da…
To end the pandemic, WHO says $28 billion ACT project is ‘the best deal in town’
The group has three big targets, Dr. Aylward said: two billion doses of vaccines at least by the end of 2021, 500 million new rapid diagnostics for low and middle income countries, and 250 million therapeutic tests. “The accelerator is all about an integrated end-to-end solution to the pandemic”, Dr…
Sleepwalking Toward the Nuclear Precipice
There is much Biden can do to signal an immediate shift in U.S. policy. He can begin to rebuild alliances and regional security structures that have atrophied under his predecessor. He can set out a national security strategy that reduces the role of nuclear weapons. And he can articulate these…